JD 310D Reverser Problem

Last fall I purchased a 1994 JD 310D 4x4 backhoe with about 7500 hours on it. The machine has been wonderful, but twice now I have encountered problems with the shuttle shift not going into gear.

In the fall, the machine had the problem, but I was too busy to look at it, and after a few weeks of sitting, the machine worked fine when I started it back up.

Then the machine did the same thing last weekend. I need this machine for a job this weekend, so I hope that I can get it working.

What happens is this - after using the machine for a few hours, both stationary with the hoe and moving stone with the front bucket, I will dig a hole. When I am done, and I go to move the machine, the shuttle shift will not engage. If I play with it long enough, it will engage - by "play with it" I mean I will shift it into forward and reverse in all gears, engage and disengage the parking brake, and engage and disengage the 4 wheel drive. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which of these finally makes it drop into gear.

Once the machine goes into gear, it will be good again until I dig or let it sit in neutral for too long. Then it does it again. As the day progresses, it takes more and more playing for the machine to go into gear, and by the afternoon it won't go into gear.

I have tried to get it into gear for the past few days, but it still won't go in. When I shift on the column, I can hear the relay in the dash operate. Underneath the machine, I can hear a relay or solenoid click up on the reverser. There are two electrical connectors that go to the reverser - one has three wires and one has two. The connector with 3 wires has a center neutral and one of the other wires are hot depending if the machine is in forward or reverse. The connector with 2 wires, which I initially suspected are for the gear disengage switches on the front bucket control, does not go hot no matter what I do in the cab.

Any ideas? Does it sound like a mechanical issue? Could it be the gear disengagement switches on the front bucket control (are these "normally hot")?

I read about a "reverser engagement speed setting" in another post. Could this need to be adjusted? Finally, does anyone have a wiring diagram of this machine's shuttle shift system?

Re: JD 310D Reverser Problem

farious -- Welcome to TBN. Sorry, your first chance to spend some time with us couldn't have been under better circumstances...

My recommendation is to double post your question on the construction forum here on TBN (I think that's OK with the moderators...). You'll likely get some feedback quicker over there than here on the JD forum.